This invention relates to improvements in reels made of one piece of foldable material. One aspect of the invention relates to improved reels made of paperboard or the like. Another aspect of the invention relates to an improved reel wherein the side panels have additional layers of material provided as reinforcement.
Reels made according to the present invention are suitable for storing elongated lengths of materials such as ribbon, lace and the like in connection with which usage of the invention will, without being limited thereto, be described.
The prior art is best exemplified by U.S. Pat. No. 3,838,602 issued on Oct. 1, 1974 to this applicant, which discloses a reel made from a single blank which can be folded into flat knock-down form and thereafter readily erected into its useful form.
In that patent the reel ends, 9 and 15 as shown therein, are comparatively wide as compared to the thickness of the core exemplified as panel 23 in the patent. In actual practice following the teachings of U.S. Pat No. 3,838,602, the reel ends are approximately three times wider than the thickness of the core upon which the products are wound. Also, as disclosed in that patent, while the reel ends are reinforced by double and even four thicknesses of material at one reel end, the major areas of the reel ends are of two ply thickness in the areas where the reel is most likely to suffer damage, i.e. from the core area to the outside edges of the reel ends.
The present invention is an improvement over the structure disclosed in the prior patent in that, first it retains all of the advantages spelled out therein, secondly, the width of the reel ends can be drastically reduced to approximately only twice the thickness of the core and, thirdly, the reel ends are more effectively reinforced being comprised of no less than three plys of material over at least their major areas. A further advantage in the improved structure is found in the more efficient utilization of blank materials since the number of cut areas is vastly reduced and the blank is virtually a solid rectangle with no fancy edges which means that there is very little scrap loss since the entire area of the starting materials can be utilized in the blanking operation.
Accordingly, the present invention has for an object the making of a reel from a single paperboard blank which can be folded in such a manner that reinforcement is available across the major area of each side panel or reel flange, yet providing a structure that can be folded from a blank to a flat shipping construction and later erected and simply locked into its final configuration.
It is an object of the present invention to provide a reel made from a single piece of material.
A further object of the invention is to produce a blank which assures maximum usage of the raw material from which the blank is formed.
It is a further object of the present invention to provide a reel having improved reinforcement on its flanges.